Telecom mergers big biz in D.C.

Sorry Wall Street, Washington’s ground zero for the big-money world of telecom deals.

A string of the most important telecom providers have spent big inside the Beltway recently to get their deals done — or even mess with the competition.

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DISH Network is the most recent example. It went so far as to hire former top campaigner for President Barack Obama, Jim Messina, earlier this month to try to block Sprint’s deal to merge with SoftBank.

In 2011, AT&T spent nearly $16 million on lobbying and $2 million in campaign contributions in its unsuccessful bid to merge with T-Mobile.

Comcast unleashed its lobbying firepower right after announcing a deal to buy NBC Universal for $30 billion at the end of 2009.

While big companies have always cared about Washington — especially those in highly regulated industries — the influence of lawmakers and regulators over private markets has grown in recent years.

That’s meant bigger spending in Washington, where high-profile campaigns are business as usual.

In DISH’s case, the company hired Messina as an adviser on strategy, fanned lobbyists across town to rally regulators and members of Congress against the deal and created a splashy website that played a little dirty, raising questions about SoftBank’s connections in Asia.

“Similar to what political candidates have done in developing a smarter approach to how they engage the electorate, you are seeing companies be much more aggressive in their advocacy led efforts in Washington,” said Blain Rethmeier, managing partner at Strategic Action Public Affairs. “So you are seeing smarter, spare-no-expense digital campaigns and third-party ally development.”

That’s not to say these high-dollar bids even work. DISH announced recently it was dropping its own effort to acquire Sprint. And AT&T was left with a nearly $4 billion breakup fee in cash and spectrum when its deal went bust.

Still, DISH’s Washington play is worth a look since the telecom wasn’t even party to the Sprint-SoftBank merger.

DISH’s Washington-based deputy general counsel, Jeff Blum, told POLITICO that the company has been focused on telling lawmakers and regulators about the merits of DISH’s counteroffer.

“The team has been focused on educating policymakers about the merits of DISH’s proposal,” Blum said. “As part of that effort, we have raised legitimate concerns about SoftBank’s relationship with China and national security risks of Softbank taking over both the spectrum, the Clearwire spectrum as well as the backbone network that Sprint owns.”

A major part of its lobbying push has been to discredit the merger by saying that Japan’s SoftBank uses equipment from Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE, which could allow Chinese spying and cyberhacking.